Page 82 of Apprentice to the Villain

Evie searched her mind, trying to remember, but she was flummoxed, not used to this direct address with no sarcastic insult included. The only thing she came up with was, “I think you said, ‘You’re going to fail’?”

Becky’s eyes shined. “But you didn’t.”

And Evie was certain in that moment that Becky saw right through her pasted-on smiles, right through to the core of her, and Becky didn’t turn away. Right now, for Evie, it was safe to just be.

Becky nodded toward the door and smiled at her—a real one, for maybe the first time. “You won’t fail at this, either. I promise you can do this.”

Evie gripped the handle and turned, opening the door.

You can.

So she did.

Chapter 49

Evie

It was dark.

A fitting scene for confronting what was arguably the ugliest part of humanity: betrayal.

The first night after her father had been imprisoned in the dungeons below the manor, she had been too grief-stricken by the boss being taken, had been aching with despair and a worry so pervasive that she hadn’t slept well since. She’d imagined what they were doing to him, how they were hurting him, and it had nearly killed her. She’d thrown herself headfirst into planning his rescue just to survive it, hadn’t wasted time on anything else. She had made sure everything was executed down to the last detail.

But Trystan was back, she’d succeeded, and now it was time to face the music.

Hurt tugged her heart into two mangled pieces as she walked down the dimly lit corridor beyond the cellar door. It was dirty, dark, and cold—an apt place for her father—but she railed against the twinge of pity she felt nevertheless. Love shriveled and disappeared differently, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but she realized now that it was the most brutal, the mostpainful, when it was abandoned.

Her love was too big, and it had been given too freely to people who didn’t deserve it.

She swallowed as she approached his cell, where he was kept isolated from the other Valiant Guards in their custody. The Malevolent Guards had left for their rotation, and the boss was keeping the next group from coming down until she was through.

As she passed the single torch hung on the wall, she saw a silhouette of a man sitting on the floor of his cell, knees pulled inward. She was cloaked in shadow, so he didn’t see Evie when she first approached—not until she tripped over an uneven slab of cement, knocking into a table with a metal tray atop it. The leftovers from his latest meal.

Griffin’s head snapped up, but his body remained still, until he saw that it wasn’t another Malevolent Guard. She dug her nails into her hands, placing them quickly behind her back so he wouldn’t see her discomfort and use it against her.

“Hello, Papa.” She sounded stronger than she felt, and she kept the point of her chin angled upward so that he might see that she was looking above him, beyond.

His face was the first thing to hit the light when he walked closer to the torch. The sight of it, which had once been a comfort, now only brought stinging pain. His laugh lines were so deep, one might look upon him and think he’d spent his life in constant humor. No one could have guessed that that humor was merely a distraction from his cruelty.

He looked surprised but oddly healthy. His complexion had more color than it had in the last few years, when he had been doing everything possible to convince Evie that he had caught the Mystic Illness to hide his involvement with the king.

He looked like a deception, a lie. It made her wonder what he saw when he looked at her—if she seemed changed, too, with her unbound hair tucked behind her ears, her loose trousers tapering down into her boots, her mother’s rouge on her cheeks and lips.

If he saw the changes, he didn’t acknowledge them. “Ah. So my daughter finally deigns to grace me with her presence.”

Sharp. There was a sharp feeling in her gut—not at the fact that she was finally facing him or that he had caused so much hurt, but because he didn’t seem at all remorseful. Worse still, he looked smug.

She was unable to pretend. Her face reflected her anger. Ice was flowing through her bloodstream, chipping away at the torn pieces of her heart until nothing remained. With her chin high, her heartbeat steady in her chest, she took one step toward him and responded, “And how little you deserve it.”

Scoffing, her father shook his head. “And yet here you are. I thought you were resolved to leave me below to rot.”

Evie’s mouth stayed in a flat line. “I think we both know you were rotted well before you got here.”

He rolled his green eyes, infuriating her, thawing the ice into a boiling rage. “Now, Evangelina, really. The dramatics. I truly thought having you find employment for the family would lead you well into adulthood, but even now, you act with such immaturity.”

Don’t, she warned herself.It’s what he wants.Someone in his position didn’t want to hear reason, just emotion. He wanted to know he had affected her. But he did not control her. He couldn’t. Not anymore.

“I have questions for you, and I will have answers,” she said. “But I will be gracious and give you options.” Stepping closer to the cell, she let one hand fall to her side, the other remaining behind her back. “You can either tell me here and now—”